Infinity's Lament
by Liona Skycat
Summary: Eternity is a long time to exist. Can you imagine? For some people life really is just a game.


Disclaimer: No ownies, no profit. I have no money. Well... maybe a nickel.

A/N: ...I really don't know what to say about this fic. Just... yeah. O o;

**Infinity's Lament**

Eternity is a long time to exist. Can you imagine? No, of course not. Nothing with a beginning, with and end, can possibly comprehend the infinite period of time that is eternity. It's forever, ahead and behind. Of course... sometimes even I forget what it was like- _is_ like, to have always been and to always be.

I digress. Eternity is a very, very long time, and one becomes bored. And what is there to do to alleviate boredom? You could collect things, possessions, but what would be the point? There are no lasting possessions for the infinite. Anything that is made eventually disappears, anything born dies, anything created, destroyed. From a flea born on the miniscule speck in this universe that is the planet called 'Earth', to the very universe it sits in. I've seen my share of universes. The only thing infinite about them is their forever growing extents.

For one such as myself there is not even _life_, the thing that humans hold so dear, to keep. To live you must be born, created, whether be you animal, plant, or other. And you must also die. That is what truly defines life. But I will never really die, and I was never truly born, I simply _was_ and will continue to _be_.

So what else is there but games? Perhaps they are not games, as you would comprehend them, but games they are to us. Some so vast as to span universes, others no more complicated than a game of tic-tac-toe. And we play for the only things worth having: the knowledge that you are the best, and for each other. Even ownership can be fleeting, but it does not matter for it always leads to another game.

We are not gods, though we may play as them, should the game ask it of us. We are neither creators nor destroyers, but will act as either if we should be so called to do so. We are certainly not mortals, but sometimes some of us would give up eternity for a moment to play as them.

But not I! Never I, for I should never lower myself to _live_, to begin and end as these _finite_ mortals do. I told myself this, I had told myself not forever, but for a time. Unfortunately, things change and beings lose, and I did lose. The stakes had been that whichever being might lose, they would be subject to whatever game or challenge the winner so chose.

You would think it strange for beings such as us to hold grudges, but grudges we do hold. Not for long usually, a few universe-spans perhaps. But coupled with grudges came rivals, a concept well known to humanity. I lost to my oldest rival, one of those who try to empathize with finites, pathetic. Pathetic, but a good gamer. And so to spite me, in my punishment game I was to be a mortal. The fury I felt then was something that as I am now, I cannot comprehend. It was a fury that could, and did, extinguish stars. It did not matter though, for I had agreed to the challenge, the punishment and would never go against the consequences of my loss.

The game... I couldn't even begin to explain the intricacies of it, couldn't put half of it into words, the words of humans, even when I was as I should be, let alone like this. I suppose it makes little sense to you, how I could play a game that I can't even understand anymore, but I can, I do, and in truth, I think that is part of the game, and there is yet a part of me that does still understand. On the whole you could say... that the game is Earth. We cultivated the extra bit of material left over from its sun, coaxed it and its brothers into full planets. My rival set up the playing field and I was allowed to add my own touches that would assist me in the game, and this creation in itself was part of the game.

Then it was time, and I was born. Birth... was a strange experience, this coming in to life that all humans experience. Though I suppose stranger for one who existed without life and can clearly remember before-life, even if I can't really understand it anymore. I have decided that life is a poison, or perhaps a drug, that alters your mind and twists you into something that you aren't. A poison that slowly kills you, until death when you are let free of its clutches. I am no longer what I was, but something else, not infinite being and not mortal but something strange in between. I long for death, to return to the peace and games that is eternity, and yet cling to life in the way that all mortals do. I would kill to keep it, it would be no large feat, they'd die eventually anyway and it is not as if there is a prize waiting for the one who lives longest. Unless, of course, you are as I, and the one who lives longest wins.

I was born into life, and the lie that is Atemu began. Do you understand? Do you understand that all of it, from beginning to end was a lie, an act? That from the creation of Earth, to the shadow games, to the attempts to 'save the world' – a world that would, eventually die – it was all just a game? I acted the son, the Pharaoh, the spirit, the protector, the savior... all lies. So many lies. All of Atemu's life, _my_ life was pretending to be something I'm not. It's confusing, acting all your life, for if you've been pretending at something since you were born is that not what you _are_? And so I am sometimes. Sometimes I forget the game, the lie and for a while I am the Pharaoh Atemu, the spirit Yami, the King of Games... and then I remember my non-life and I lie once more.

Only, there was one thing, one thing about this life that was not a lie. A truth that carried through to that part of me that is as it was, for if my entire life is a lie, then a truth must be part of my non-life? Right? I don't know, I don't understand. Nor do I understand the truth I happened upon, I simply know that it _is_, just as I no longer truly understand how I simply _am_.

And that truth is Yugi. Well, how I feel about him, anyway. You ask me what I feel for him? I couldn't say, because we don't feel anything for each other, except maybe rivalry or contempt or respect... but those really aren't _feelings,_ but for Yugi I _feel_. But us infinite beings, we don't feel. Of course, we also don't have possessions, I told you that, but Yugi is _mine_.

All I'm going to say about Yugi being mine is that nobody is taking him from me. _Ever_. No one will _touch_ my Yugi, no one will _hurt_ my Yugi, and no one, and I mean no one, will _ever fucking make me leave my Yugi._

Impossible, you would say, to keep him forever. For he is mortal and I am not, and perhaps you would be right. But then again, I have always been and you are merely human, and so what would _you_ know? What _I_ know is that things happen in the universes, unexpected things, unpredictable things, and rarely is anything ever impossible. But until I find a way, I will not leave my Yugi, and so this game, this horrible game that keeps me trapped as something I am not, will go on.

* * *


End file.
